Ladybirds and other summer blessings

What a blest day we have had. A call at 8.30 a.m. signaled that friends from NZ were passing through Sydney (en route to Denver) with a day to spare. So out to the airport, drive into town and walk around Mrs MacQuaries's chair with tired but keen on climbing three-year-old who made the most of all the sandstone steps. Then home to our 'empty nest' for a great time of catching up and renewing friendship.

After several 30 degrees plus days, and 43 degrees again yesterday. today's cooler 24 made a late afternoon in the garden very pleasant. Hibiscus trimmed back strongly and all the paths swept and clean. It's time for our six-monthly massive rubbish collection and there is now a pile of tree branches on the kerb. Plus various other unfixable items cleared from the garage.

I hadn't realised that the hibiscus provided a home for so many ladybirds. They were flying everywhere as I pruned. I have never really seen them airborne before. Very beautiful! A very tiny one I relocated by hand. But the others seemed to find new (attached) branches quite easily. Although I was aware of the asault I was making on their territory.

So carried away with the gardening we were late for church. But not too late for the blessing of Matt Redman and Beth Redman's song:

Blessed be your name in the land that is plentiful
Where streams of abundance flow, Blessed be your name
And blessed be your name when I'm found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness, Blessed be your name

It was the high point for me. Amid contextless pleas for change and a meander through the failure of the congregation to embrace the 'change' (undefined) recommended by a review in 2001. I was a bit lost in the sermon, and some of the other music, but this song does give me a sense of linking with the varieties of experience of life, and the hope and praise that can come forth in those diverse circumstances.

It made sense of the call from our partner churches in Fiji for additional aid as they face the aftermath of severe flooding. Of course the political instability and denial of democracy means that nations like Australia and New Zealand are not providing aid through government channels.

This comes after a solid and productive week at work, orientation with fellow tutors for 2009, movies on Friday and Saturday nights that were well worth seeing. Valkyrie for (limited) insight into a period of German history - and I was pleasantly surprised by Cruise's performance. Doubt for intriguing glimpses at the intricacies of human relationships, gender power imbalances, trust and justice.

And that empty nest. A sense of rightness rather than bereavement. One child celebrating 21st with friends interstate (due home on Tuesday). One still serving ice cream to deserving (or at least paying) customers in the Great Barrier Reef region, and taking a dinghy to a neighbouring island to celebrate Australia Day tomorrow. And one safe with a host family in the USA central time zone experiencing temperatures below zero and where quite possibly no one knows that it is Australia Day weekend!

Mind you I don't think anyone here noticed my careful selection of gold and green flowers for the church arrangement! It's kind of time we started engaging with the community around us rather than continuing the 8-year-plus conversation about how we must so engage.